[Xfce-i18n] [patch] Re: mcs-manager dialog too wide

[Daichi Kawahata]

On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 13:05:42 -0300
Adriano Winter Bess wrote:

> Moving to xfce-i18n...
> 
> On Tue, Apr 04, 2006 at 11:55:10PM +0900, Daichi Kawahata wrote:
> > I'm stick with the length given by the original sentence as
> > much as possible believing that it's the planned length to
> > fit the interface, so a trial and error only happens in that
> > limited spaces for me basically.
> 
> I guess this is what most translators try to do, at least I do ;)
> Unfortunately, sometimes it's just really not possible, and I see
> two main reasons for this.
> 
> The first one is related to the fact that some words don't have
> a proper translation into another language. For example, for the
> "Window Manager Tweaks" plugin, there's no optimal translation for
> "Tweaks" in pt_BR. Anything trying to be close to it in pt_BR will
> sound so informal or so jargon that I doubt it more than 5% of
> people will know what it means. Of course, this is just a
> particularity of a specific locale, and it's the translator job to
> find the best way to describe the same thing. In this case, sometimes
> labels get a little bigger than the original and it's definitely
> hard to avoid. (OK, maybe for the Window Manager Tweaks it would be
> better another - shorter - name in english or even integration with
> the already existing Window Manager plugin).
> 
> The second one is related to the fact that some words/expressions
> are expected to be translated in a specific way, even if the translator
> could think of a shorter or "better" way. For example, for the
> "Workspaces and Margins" plugin, every single desktop environment
> I know translates "Workspaces" as "Áreas de Trabalho" in pt_BR.
> It's much bigger than the original (almost twice as big), but for
> consistency issues I'm not likely to translate it to anything else
> nor come up with my own "invented" translation.

The address below is exact what for that purpose,

  Brazilian Portuguese <ldp-br at bazar.conectiva.com.br>

at least, your patch posted to the xfce4-dev isn't so useful in
Japanese, but you'd know it's not only you stumbled at that word,
such squeezed word must be swelled out in the process of translation.

As for the your second paragraph, then I took a different stance
from you...

Anyway, probably I can manage my translations after your patch
applied, so I'd like to know how the others think on it.

Please take a look at:

  http://foo-projects.org/pipermail/xfce4-dev/2006-April/019318.html

Regards,
-- 
Daichi

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